PERFUMES 



sity's snares. Our sense of smell is the one sheerly luxurious 

 sense that she has granted us. Wherefore it seems almost 

 foreign to our bodies and appears but remotely connected with 

 our organism. Is it an instrument that is developing, or one 

 that is becoming atrophied; a somnolent, or an awakening 

 faculty? Everything suggests that evolving simultaneously 

 with our civilization. The ancients were interested almost ex- 

 clusively in the more violent, the heavier, the more solid scents, 

 so to speak; musk, benzoin, myrrh and frankincense; and the 

 fragrance of the flowers is very seldom mentioned in Greek 

 and Latin poetry or in Hebrew literature. To-day, do we 

 ever see our peasants, even at their longest periods of leisure, 

 dream of smelling a violet or a rose? And is not this, on the 

 other hand, the very first act of an inhabitant of our great 

 cities who perceives a flower? There is, therefore, some 

 ground for admitting that the sense of smell is the last-born- 

 of our senses, the only one, perhaps, that is not *^on the retro- 

 gade path," to use the ponderous phrase of the biologist. 

 This is a reason for making it our study, questioning it and 

 cultivating its possibilities. Who shall tell the surprises 

 which it would have in store for us if it equalled, for in- 

 stance, the perfection of our sight, as it does in the case of 



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